A series of highly branched star-comb poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(L-lactide) (scPCL-b-PLLA) were successfully achieved using star-shaped hydroxylated polybutadiene (HPB) with designed number of arms and hydroxyl groups as macroinitiator by simple “graft from” strategy. These star-comb double crystalline copolymers were first synthesized and expected to illustrate the influences of the main chain structure. The crystallization behaviors of scPCL-b-PLLA with different topologies were investigated by means of wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy (POM) analysis. It is shown that the comb branched architectures greatly promote the crystallization behavior of both PCL and PLLA compared with their equivalent linear counterparts. The crystallinity and crystallization rate raised from linear to anched copolymers, but decreased with the number of HPB arms increased due to the dense branching topology. The structure-property relationship was discussed systematically in this work.

Synthesis of star-comb double crystalline copolymers of ε-caprolactone /L-lactide: Effect of main-chain structure on crystallization behavior

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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